Survival
by FooFooPudding
Summary: Shalimar thinks about her life with Mutant X


**SURVIVAL**

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Mutant X. They are owned by Tribune Entertainment.

* * *

It's been about three weeks since Brennan came to my aid that day near the water canal. Three weeks of resting my shoulder and not doing much of anything...Adam's orders.

I've watched the team come and go from missions while I'm stuck behind a computer for most of the day. But it's not being cooped up that bothers me. It's not even the fact that I'm standing on the sidelines while they get all the action. It's that I've lost my desire to be a part of Mutant X. I know it sounds crazy. Hell, I can't even believe I've come to this point. But these past three weeks have made me take a second look at my life, and my future.

I came so close to death that I could almost feel him standing over me. That black robe and hood. The cold breeze and chill in the air that surrounded him. It still sends chills down my spine just thinking about it.

I've thought about it over and over and I keep coming to the same conclusion: if I stay with Mutant X I'm lifeless. That is, on one hand I could be killed, therefore losing my life. And on the other hand I'm never going to settle down and have a family, therefore I'll never have 'a' life. Yes, Brennan is special to me. He and I love each other, but it would never work if we were husband and wife. We'd both worry about one another too much, always facing dangerous situations and all. It would be too much of a strain on our relationship.

So that's why I'm packing up my things. It's time that I started living my life, my own life. I know Adam and the others aren't going to be very happy with my decision and will try their best to talk me out of it. That's why I'm not going to give them the chance. It took me a whole day to compose the note that I'm leaving behind. I think I wrote about a thousand rough drafts before this one, but I wanted to make sure I said everything I needed to say.

As I look around the room that I've occupied for quite some time, I start to tear up. I'm taking a lot of good memories with me, and unfortunately some bad ones too but that's life.

I sling my duffel bag over my shoulder and place the note on my pillow. I slip off my Comlink ring and place it on top of the note and then before I regret my decision, I quietly creep out of the room.

Sanctuary is still and quiet at night. The slightest snap of the wooden stairs can echo throughout the hall so I'm careful not to trigger the effect.

I make it out into the garage and strap my bag to the back of my bike as best as I can. Straddling the seat, I put my helmet on and start it up. After a deep breath, I ride away...leaving Sanctuary and my friends behind me.

ONE MONTH LATER

For a while now I've been living a normal life, whatever 'normal' is, in a small apartment in the city. It's kinda weird being away from Mutant X and it's taken a lot of inner strength to keep myself from running back to them.

I miss the sound of Brennan's voice, his touch, the smell of his cologne. But it has to be this way. This is something I need to do on my own.

I've decided to go one step further in my quest for freedom by moving out of state. As I get out of the cab at the airport, the driver gets out to help me with my bags. "Thanks," I say as I hand him a tip along with my cab fare. He smiles at me, totally unaware of who I really am, which is rather nice.

The airport is buzzing with passengers who have either just returned home or are on their way somewhere, just like me. 

I put my bags up onto the conveyor belt of the x-ray machine and wait for the attendant to signal to me to go through the metal detector. I study his face as he looks over the contents of my bags and I see his brow crease. He looks up at me and then motions for me to pass through the metal detector. I do as I'm told and the alarm stays silent.

As I stand on the other side of the conveyor belt, I see him take my bags off the belt and place them on the ground beside him. He pulls out his walkie talkie and calls for someone. Within seconds, two men, dressed in black, appear on each side of me and ask me to come with them.

They escort me into an empty room and lock the door behind them. I can feel my feral side starting to take over as I sense that something is definitely wrong.

"Put your hands behind your back please, ma'am," one of the men asks me. I'm not sure what to do. If they're not out to hurt me and I lash out, I could get myself in bigger trouble by revealing my mutantency. 

But before I can make up my mind, one of the men pushes me down to the floor, pinning me down with his knee in the middle of my back. He yanks my arms behind my back roughly and cuffs them together. "Don't want to cooperate, huh?" he says as he leans into my back harder.

I grunt in pain as the handcuffs dig into the skin around my wrists and his knee presses against one of my kidneys. "Get off me!" I struggle a bit but it's useless, he's pretty big.

The other man comes over beside me and the next thing I know, his shoe is pressing on the back of my neck.

"You mind telling us why you're out in public, freak."

I can't look up at him which pisses me off. I like to be able to look into my opponent's eyes before a fight.

I choose not to answer him and the result of my silence causes him to take his shoe off my neck. The man behind me gets off of me and yanks me to my feet. He shoves me hard into the nearest wall, slamming my head against it in the process.

"He asked you a question," he says right near my ear. "When he asks you something you had better answer."

The man grabs a fistful of my hair and slams my head into the wall again. This time, I can feel warm blood running down the side of my face.

He turns me around and shoves me down to my knees in front of the man. Then he pulls me by my hair so that I'm looking up at him. The man stands in front of me, shaking his head as he places his hand under my chin. "We don't need to do this the hard way, sweetheart."

The evil grin on his face makes my stomach turn.

He pulls a chair over and sits in front of me, resting his elbows on his knees. "Now, let me ask you again. What are you doing amongst the 'normal' people?"

Since I ended up getting my head bashed in by not saying anything, I opted to answer this time. "You call yourself normal?" I ask. 

The man chuckles and sits back for a moment. "That's good, very good." In a flash, he pulls out a gun and puts it to my temple. "I'm not screwing around, bitch! How many others of 'your kind' are loose on the streets, huh?"

"I'm the only one that I know of." I decide to quit the wise ass routine considering the barrel of a gun is jammed against my head.

"Really? That's not what I hear."

"Oh yeah?" I reply.

"I hear that you've been helping some of your freak friends mingle into society."

"I don't know what you're talking about, I swear." 

"I don't much care for freaks like you. Let's just say I've had a few 'run ins' with your kind with some rather unpleasant results. It is a shame though, you're very beautiful."

As he looks me over, and even looks down my shirt, I feel the anger inside me starting to come to a boil. But with my hands bound behind my back and a gun at my head, I'm not in the best position to start a fight. So I suck it up and let him get his rocks off on checking me out.

The gun moves away from my head and is put back into the holster inside his jacket. He looks over at the man who had me pinned the to floor, "Get her up." Then he looks back at me, "There's someone I want you to meet."

The man hauls me to my feet. "Try anything and I'll break your arms."

They lead me out of the room and then out of the airport to a limo waiting outside. I'm shoved inside and seated between the man with the gun and the man whos breath smells like someone's ass.

"I don't think you need to know where we're going," the gunman says. Suddenly, everything turns black.

***

As I come to, I feel water being thrown in my face. I realize that I'm sitting in a wooden chair, my arms are still handcuffed behind my back and around the chair's back. I look up and see the gunman's face come into focus.

"Wake up."

I try blinking several times to try and come to my senses. Then I feel the pain begin to flare up on the right side of my head. Wincing, I can only imagine what my face must look like.

"Remember, there's someone I want you to meet."

Before what he said registered to my brain, someone appeared from behind me. I didn't get a chance to see who it was because they hooked their foot around the leg of my chair and pulled it, slamming me to the floor, painfully, on my side. I heard something 'pop' as I hit the ground. The pain that began radiating from my shoulder indicated to me that I had just dislocated it. I did my best not to show the pain I was in but it was too much. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ride out the wave of pain.

"Aw, did that hurt? Huh, Shalimar?"

I immediately opened my eyes and saw Zack Lockhart crouched down in front of me. My stomach nearly lunged out of my throat. "Zack?"

"Zack here has been helping me track mutants who've come out of hiding and think they can live amongst us," the gunman explained.

The pain in my shoulder made me want to just pass out, but I couldn't let that happen. I did my best to stay focused. "Zack, you're a..." White-hot pain exploded in my shoulder as Zack kicked me. 

"Shut up! I don't want to hear a word from you," Zack yelled.

"Well, I see you've got everything under control. I'll leave you two alone so you can get down to business."

After the gunman was gone, Zack grabbed my chair and sat me upright again. The movement caused me great pain. "Please, Zack, uncuff my hands," I pleaded through gritted teeth.

He stood in front of me and then leaned in and kissed me. I wanted to bite his lip or headbutt him in protest of the kiss but I just didn't have the energy.

After he was done shoving his tongue down my throat, he undid my handcuffs. I quickly brought my right arm over and grabbed my left shoulder, hoping that by doing so the pain would subside. But it didn't. "You bastard," I spat at him.

"You know I really don't want to hurt you, Shalimar."

"Save it, Zack. It's all a bunch of bullshit. You've hurt me so many times, mentally and physically, that I've lost count." I waited for him to answer but he didn't. "What's this all about?"

"I heard you left Mutant X and let's just say that I looked you up."

Hopefully Zack noticed the confused look on my face because I still had no idea what his intentions were. "Who is this guy with the gun?"

"His name is Jeremy Thompson. He's a political and business man. He hired me to track down the mutants living in the city so that we can 'dispose' of them."

"You're a mutant too!" I yelled, which I regretted because it caused the pain in my shoulder to kick up.

Zack came over to me and put his hand on my wounded shoulder, applying some pressure. "If you tell Jeremy that I'm a mutant I'll rip your arm off and you won't have to worry about it anymore."

"Okay, okay!"

Zack let go and then began wiping the blood from my face with the hem of his shirt. He always confused the hell out of me. One minute he was caring and warm and the next minute he was heartless and cold.

"I'm sorry, Shalimar. We all have to do things in life that we don't really want to do. But it all comes down to survival and you do whatever you can to survive."

"So how does killing innocent mutants make you survive?"

"I guess...if you can't beat 'em join 'em. There's a lot of mutant-hating people out there and they out number us. By not being a mutant I become one of them and I'm able to live freely. No hassles."

What Zack says disgusts me and I try to move away from his touch. 

"Come on, Shalimar. Don't be like that."

"Get away from me. You make me sick."

Zack moves away from me and stands up, rubbing his chin and smiling. "Ya know, I was hoping you'd help me with all of this. Think of the life we could have. Plenty of money and freedom."

"What? Are you insane? First of all, your friend Jeremy wants me dead. Secondly, you expect me to lead you to the mutants underground? If that's the case you're more screwed up than I originally thought."

Zack leans over in front of me, putting his hands on his knees, "You don't have much of a choice at this stage of the game. You're hurt and you're scared. If you help me he'll let you live because he needs you."

"Forget it. I'd rather die then help you."

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

Zack grabs me by my wounded arm and pulls me to my feet. I scream out in pain and it only makes him tighten his grip. 

He drags me out of the room and down a short, dark hallway. He opens one of the doors and pushes me inside. I fall to the floor, clutching my shoulder.

"I'm gonna give you some time to re-think about your answer. You've got a half hour." Zack slams the door and locks it.

As I lay on my back in the middle of the floor I curse at myself for leaving Mutant X and for thinking that I'd be able to live a normal life amongst non-mutants.

The room I'm in is dark and cold. It contains a couple of wooden chairs and a bed that looks like it came from a prison. But what really catches my eye is the small window that's about eight feet up on the wall.

With every ounce of strength that I have, I get to my feet and go over to the bed. Using my good arm, I manage to strip it of it's mattress and then turn it so it's standing on it's end. I drag over a chair and climb up onto the top of the iron frame of the bed. My shoulder is pretty pissed off at all this movement but I put it to the back of my mind.

I wipe the dust off the window and see that there's a parking lot outside. The good thing is that I'm on the first floor so it won't be a long drop down. The bad thing is that my shoulder isn't going to appreciate me trying to get up onto this window sill. I haven't got much choice so I close my eyes and quickly get onto the sill. I pause for a moment as the pain stops me in my tracks. Sweat pours down my face, stinging the cut by my eye. 

I break the glass with my good arm, not caring too much if I get cut, I just want to get the hell out of here.

With a deep breath I slide out the window and crash to the ground in a heap. Every bit of energy I have is dwindling and I don't know how much longer I can hold on before I pass out from the pain.

I shift myself back and lean up against the wall of the building as I check out my surroundings. To my left I see another wing of the building and to the right I see woods. I opt to head to the right, hoping the wooded area would shield my escape, so I get to my feet and do my best to start running.

Just as I get to the edge of the woods I hear gunshots. I look back and see Zack and Jeremy running in my direction, both are firing at me.

I take cover behind a tree and hear bullets splintering the wood. They're getting closer. 

I start to run again and feel bullets whizzing past me. My heart is pounding out of my chest and I'm incredibly tired but I keep moving as fast as I possibly can.

I don't hear the gunshots anymore which worries me because now I can't tell where Zack and Jeremy are.

I see a huge log up ahead and I quickly get on the other side of it so I can take a moment to rest. But as I sit myself down I realize that one of the bullets hit it's mark. Although it's just a graze wound on my right side, it's still significant enough to bleed at a good clip, not to mention hurt like hell. What a mess I've gotten myself into.

As I inspect the wound, I hear a twig snap. I quickly look up and see Jeremy standing in front of me with his gun aimed right at my face.

"And where do you think you're going?"

"Just out for a walk," I say sarcastically.

He starts talking and I don't really hear what he's saying because I feel a large stick by my side as I put my hand on the ground. As he talks I grab it and it one quick movement I smack him with it, knocking the gun from his grasp. He shouts out in pain, claiming that I've broken his wrist. Oh well. I dive for the gun and he jumps on top of me. We wrestle for a few moments and then I press the trigger, sending a bullet right through the middle of his chest. I shove his dead body off of me and Zack appears.

"Holy shit!" Zack examines Jeremy's body and sees the bloody bullet wound. "You killed him!"

I bring the gun up and aim it at Zack. "Survival, remember?"

Zack brings up his gun and aims it at me. "Touche."

I struggle to stay alert, even in this intense circumstance. But my body is beginning to shut down.

"What are we going to do now, Shalimar? You shoot me and I shoot you?"

"If that's what it takes to get you out of my life for good then I'm all for it."

Zack laughs loudly as he cocks the hammer back on his gun. "Good bye, Shalimar."

"Good bye, Zack." I shut my eyes and squeeze the trigger of my gun. Then everything goes silent.

****

A cold breeze against my face is what wakes me with a start. It's now nightfall and I soon realize that I'm still lying by the log. Zack and Jeremy both lie motionless only a few feet away from me and then I remember what happened. I quickly look down at my chest and look for a bullet wound and only find the one I had from before. With a sigh of relief, I feel my body relax only for a short moment before the pain in my shoulder and side comes creeping back.

I get up and start walking deeper into the woods. I can hear the roar of cars off in the distance so a main road must be nearby.

After about five minutes I find the road and begin to thumb a ride. I know it's definitely not the safest thing to do but at this point I'm desperate.

Cars pass by, one after another, and no one wants to stop. The fact that I'm a bloody mess might have something to do with it. But a big rig comes up the road and soon comes to a stop beside me. The driver gets out and comes over to me, "Are you alright, Miss?"

"Can you drive me East?"

He nods and helps me into the passenger seat. "What happened to you? I think we should call the police."

"No. No police. I'm fine. Just had a fight with my boyfriend. He dropped me off on the side of the road."

He put the truck in drive and that's when I fell asleep.

***

We had driven for hours and I had him drop me off not too far from Sanctuary. I thanked him for the ride and walked the rest of the way, watching as he disappeared down the road.

When I got to Sanctuary I found no one home, which was rather disappointing. I immediately went into the lab to get some medical supplies for the bullet wound in my side then I went up to my room. Being back here felt weird, as if I didn't belong here.

I took a shower and washed off the dried blood and dirt from my tired body. I did my best to patch up the wound in my side, Adam would have to help with that later. Then I put my left arm in a sling and bound it tightly to my chest so it wouldn't move around. 

After downing a few aspirin, I was on my way into the kitchen when Brennan walked in. He stood there for a moment, his face went pale and he looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Shal?"

"Hi." It was all I could say.

He slowly walked over to me, extending his hand and touching the bruises and cuts on my face. "What the hell happened to you? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. Come here." He put his arms around me and squeezed me tight, causing me to gasp in pain as his embrace hurt my shoulder. He moved away, his eyes wide with concern, "I'm sorry."

"My shoulder is dislocated," I explained.

"Lets get you to the lab. Adam should be here in a few minutes anyway."

We walked to the lab and it felt like old times. Old times that I never realized I'd missed so much.

Brennan helped me into the chair and took a seat on the edge of the table. "Why did you leave? I know in the note you said you wanted to try and start a new life on your own. But why?"

"I dunno. I thought I'd be able to make it out there on my own and that no one would find out that I was a mutant. I thought I'd never have to use my mutant abilities out there and so no one would know."

"So what happened?"

"Well, Zack is what happened. I was at the airport when some mutant hater tracked me down. He took me to some abandoned warehouse or something just off the interstate and that's where Zack came into the picture. This guy hired Zack to track down mutants living in non-mutant society. When he found them he killed them."

"Geez! Are you serious! We better let Adam know so he can keep an eye on Zack and..."

"Zack is dead."

"Who killed him?"

"I did."

"Oh, Shal. I'm sorry."

"I had to kill him. It was either him or me. It was all about survival, that's what Zack said. I guess he was right. Sometimes we all have to do things we don't want to do in order to survive."

"What about the other guy?"

"He's dead too. I..." I couldn't help myself, I begin to cry.

Brennan was immediately by my side, hugging me gently. "It's okay, you're safe now. You're home."

THE END


End file.
